“It is not good for man to be alone.” —Genesis 2:19
“All the lonely people.” —The Beatles
Loneliness used to be regarded as a purely personal problem. No longer. Today, loneliness is described as an epidemic in many different countries around the world, and as a serious social problem with high health, economic, and social costs. Books on social problems discuss inequality, crime, racism, sexism, and other injustices, but not loneliness.
There had been work on loneliness earlier, notably The Lonely Crowd by David Riesman and colleagues (1950) and by Moustakis (1961), Weiss (1973), Cacioppo and Patrick (2008), and on solitude by the Jungian therapist Anthony Storr (1988). The Beatles were prescient with their song, “All the lonely people. Where do they all belong?”
Indeed, it is only recently that loneliness has become a subject of international concern and government policy. 2023 may mark a turning point in our understanding of loneliness and isolation, at least in the U.S., and especially since COVID-19. In April, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy wrote a personal and poignant op-ed in The New York Times. In May, he published an advisory: Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Social Isolation. This was followed by the Biden-Harris administration's decision to allocate nearly $700 million to tackle the problem.
It is an unprecedented mental health crisis affecting people of all ages. In 2021, two in five American adults reported experiencing symptoms of anxiety and depression, and 44 percent of high school students reported struggling with persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, social media, and gun violence. (And I would add the climate crisis, the war in Ukraine, the political polarization, the opioid epidemic, and cancel wars.)
In November, the World Health Organization (WHO) launched a Commission on Social Connection (WHO, 2023). Then, The New York Times surveyed loneliness and published a video (Westbrook and Holzknecht, 2023). And new books have been published on both loneliness (Alfredi, 2019) and solitude (Vincent, 2020).
In the U.K., the first initiative came from Jo Cox, a British parliament member, who created a Commission on Loneliness shortly before she was murdered in 2016. The commission reported in 2017, and the following year, Prime Minister Theresa May accepted all the recommendations and created what the media called a minister for loneliness but was, in fact, an addition to the portfolio of the Minister for Sport and Civil Society.
An early minister, Baroness Barran, discussed the priorities of the ministry as initiating discussions, financially supporting local community groups, and providing park benches to facilitate social contact while social workers are being sent to doctors’ offices. The hope is for a ripple effect. She found that “greater social connection is associated with a 50 percent reduced risk of early death.” (Kristof, 2019).
An Economist article reported on “Britain’s mental health mess” (9 Dec. 2023). In 2021, Britons consumed more anti-depressants than almost every other European country: about the same as Australia and Canada, only lower than Portugal and Iceland but about double the rates of Germany and France, and much higher than Italy. While poverty, family trauma, and isolation are the greatest risk factors for mental illness, impoverished children are the biggest users of the National Health Service (NHS) mental health services, and about 4.5 million people contacted these services in 2021-2022, up almost one million in five years.
In 2023, an NHS survey found that one in five 8- to 16-year-olds had a probable mental disorder, a rise from one in eight, and among 17 to 19-year-olds, the number had more than doubled from one in 10 to one in four. Mental health is getting much worse.
Then, about 57 percent of university students said that they suffered from some form of mental illness (a self-assessment, not a clinical diagnosis). That said, some worry that these students are conflating mental illness with the usual ills of life: loneliness, anger, boredom, anxiety about exams, among others, and are drawing scarce resources away from those most in need. Those with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.
Meanwhile, NHS therapists, overworked and underpaid, are leaving the NHS for private practice (safer, less work, and more money), thereby stressing the system even more. In 2022, the government announced a plan to study the underlying causes of mental illness, including poverty and isolation. In 2023, they scrapped it.
In Japan, following this British example of ministerial deployment and a rise in suicides, the Japanese government also appointed a minister for loneliness in 2021.
In Canada, a 2021 survey revealed that about 13 percent of people aged over 15 reported feeling lonely “always” or “often.” Rates were highest among the young (15-24), declining steadily to stabilize at 9 to 10 percent (35-74) and rising to 14 percent above that age. (Rates would seem to be far lower than in the U.S.) Rates were also higher for those not in a couple (21 percent) than those who are married or in a common-law relationship (7 percent). The lonely also reported poorer mental health and lower life satisfaction. (Statistics Canada, 2021). The federal government has taken no initiatives on this epidemic yet.
In Sweden, Asa Koski, a municipal worker in the small town of Lulea, launched the “Sag he!” (Say hi!) campaign with workshops in schools and advertisements in buses to alleviate isolation and loneliness. The Guardian journalist Hannah Jane Parkinson wondered how this would work in London. Her first effort, “a cheery hiya” to a group of teenagers, “met with a blend of recoil, pity and disgust.” Her second attempt resulted in a woman who “virtually hisses.” Later efforts met with more success. (Parkinson, 2023)
In the U.S., In his advisory, the U.S. surgeon general outlined the social, health, and economic costs and consequences of loneliness. I will highlight some of the principal findings in direct quotes:
The surgeon general presented more data, but perhaps this summary will suffice to indicate the severity of the epidemic. He then went on to offer more details on the negative health outcomes of loneliness and the positive educational and economic benefits of connections for individuals and communities. He concluded by creating A National Strategy to Advance Social Connection, building on six pillars, and directing the major stakeholders from governments and communities to the media and individuals. This accumulation of data indicates the depth of the problem. Loneliness is far more than merely personal, but the depth of the personal may be agonizing.
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Loneliness Survey is available online for those who wish to estimate the degree of their loneliness.
The solution, Murthy insists, is to develop a “culture of connection” based on “the core values that make us strong—love, kindness, respect, service, and commitment to one another—and reflect them in the world we build for ourselves and our children.” (46)
References
Alberti, Fay Bound 2019. A Biography of Loneliness. Oxford University Press.
Cacioppo, John; William, Patrick. 2008. Loneliness. Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection. New York: Norton.
Johnson, Sarah 2023. “WHO declares loneliness a ‘public health concern.’’’ Guardian 16 November.
Kristof, Nicholas 2019. “Let’s wage a war on loneliness.” New York Times. 10 November.
Moustakis, Clark E. 1961. Loneliness. Prentice-Hall.
Murthy, Vivek 2023. “Surgeon General: We have become a lonely nation…” New York Times. 30 April.
Murthy, Vivek 2023. Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation. SurgeonGeneral.gov
Parkinson, Hannah Jane 2023. “Will the Swedish ‘say hi’ campaign work in London?” Guardian 24 November.
Statistics Canada 2021. Loneliness in Canada. Ottawa, ON. Cat. No. 11-627-M.
Vincent, David 2020. A History of Solitude. Cambridge: Polity.
Weiss, Robert Stuart 1973. Loneliness. The Experience of Emotional and Social Rejection. Boston: MIT Press.
Westbrook, Adam and Emily Holzknecht, 2023. “The Life Span of Loneliness.” New York Times 21 December.
WHO 2023.
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